| February 2003 |
Claiming the Behavioral Risk High Ground Daniel Feerst, DFA Publishing "Employee assistance programs have come a long way, but they’ve been seriously redefined. Much of the literature outside the field--everything from the Washington Post to HR magazine--references EAPs as predominantly counseling services in the workplace associated with health benefit plans. This is the prevailing view of EAPs. How many of you have managed care companies referring employees with back injuries to you so you can address the psychosocial issues that protract their recovery? Raise your hand if you get those kinds of referrals. A lot of EAPs don’t, because they aren’t interfacing with other pieces of the organization. If you are an external EAP provider, do you know the names of the insurance companies that write property/casualty insurance in your area--not just workers’ compensation, but employment practices liability insurance and things of that nature? Are you partnering with them on how to reduce their exposures? There are tremendous opportunities for the EAP field in this area and in understanding how to identify things you do all the time that represent unarticulated but real value in loss prevention for the organization. The Arlington County [Va.] Employee Assistance Program, where I worked until earlier this year, won a safety award in 1997, and it completely bypassed us. It was for the lowest claims for property/casualty accidents of any public school system in Virginia for two years in a row. This is consistent with EAP research. Can I say, “I can prove how that happened”? No, I can’t. But we have to do more to understand it. The award wasn’t sent to the EAP because there’s such a disconnect between the property/casualty insurance sector and employee assistance programming. We’ve had 20 years to approach them, but we haven’t done it. We’ve been going down a different track. One of the things I think we as a field need to do is stop being what I call “institutionally co-dependent.” I am seeing more and more examples of EAPs relying upon other workplace specialists and experts to give them permission to do EAP work--particularly if it falls outside the realm of assess, refer, and consult. If your EAP is gravitating more and more toward the simple concepts of assess, refer, and consult with supervisors, you’re moving toward a dimension of risk associated with program loss, services being contracted out, and an ineffective service delivery model. So, is your employee assistance program BRM-savvy? Number one, do you have a process to discover, analyze, and articulate new EAP opportunities through the identification of behavioral risk? Do you breathe this concept? Marsh McLennan is the largest property/casualty insurance agent in the United States. They have just created a behavioral risk management division within their agency, and it doesn’t mention EAPs. They also created, in October 2001, the first insurance policy--and raise your hand if you know this--to deal with the psychiatric impact of terrorism on the workplace. Why don’t EA professionals know that? Do you have a behavioral risk management partnership with the host organization? Do you back-engineer losses to find EAP opportunities? I cannot impress upon you enough the need to do this. When something goes bump in the night, service the employee, but after it’s all over, ask yourself, “Where’s the EAP opportunity in this?” Are you achieving EAP upward mobility? Do you seek partnerships with risk management stakeholders--the property/casualty insurance agencies, the workers’ comp/managed care people, and others who deal with loss prevention outside the health arena? Is EAP influence growing or declining in your organization? There’s no staying the same. Do you pursue anecdotal proof of value, if not cost-benefit? A lot of you don’t have the money, the energy, or the time to bring in researchers. But I’d rather have some key managers in an organization say, “Boy, the EAP really is a good thing to have in this organization. Here’s what they did for us.” I’d rather have that over research any day. Because if someone comes knocking on your door and asks you to give them a cost-benefit analysis of the EAP and some research evidence that it’s cost-beneficial, they’re already thinking about cutting you. Behavioral risk mapping is a dynamic process of identifying existing and emerging behavioral risks and seeking organizational acceptance for EAP intervention into or management of those risks. The key words here are “dynamic process.” It’s a living, breathing process; it’s not me sending you out of this room today having made a good impression on you. Employee assistance professionals can, if they work on it, gain access to the organization.” DISCUSSION (Member Exchange Forum) |
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© 2003 Exhange On-Line is a publication of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, Inc. (EAPA). Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is expressly prohibited. Publication of bylined articles does not constitute endorsement of personal views of authors. Appearance of paid advertisements does not constitute endorsement by EAPA. |
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